


Broken World

by ElnaK



Series: Books of Sacrifices [22]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Delusions, F/F, F/M, Gen, The Machine Coffee Shop, no actual Harold, simulations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 07:26:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11375412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElnaK/pseuds/ElnaK
Summary: John Riley is a NYPD detective, and has had a problem ever since his wife was assaulted  and left in a coma a few months ago, everyone agree on that, and they are worried.(John Riley was never John Reese, he's just having a psychotic break.Or perhaps Samaritan brainwashed everyone - perhaps it's a simulation - to get him to lead them to the Machine.Then again, that theory too could be part of his delusions.Or at least that's what they want him to think.)





	Broken World

**Author's Note:**

> I'm letting you reach the conclusion you prefer - I think I made it ambiguous enough.

Captain Moreno decided that day, as she watched her people working on various cases, that Detective John Riley had a problem. Or rather, Riley was the problem.

The man – tall, graying hair, handsome, tailored suit, strong – had a certain propensity to shoot kneecaps, was hardly easy to find whenever you wanted to talk to him, but always walked out of the shadows without a sound whenever you weren't expecting him to, and finally, he arrested more perps red-handed and before they killed someone than he discovered who was guilty of a murder. Which wasn't, of course, a bad thing, since that way, at least, the victims usually lived. But it was odd for a homicide detective.

Everyone in the precinct wondered how exactly Riley knew where to be just at the right time, but no one ever asked. Everyone could tell the man didn't have a problem with violence, but not even IA, especially their boss Greer, could do a thing about it, because aside from that one time with the bus, the shooting / fighting / intimidating was done within the rules – loosely so, but still. Everyone felt there was something different about Riley... They just didn't know what to say about it.

It was here, and yet it wasn't here.

Moreno had met John Riley five years ago, when she had been assigned to the 8th precinct. He had started as a detective three years before that, after having left the military – from here came his ease with killing, people said, because Riley was more of a necessity guy than a rules guy. Captain Moreno did know for a fact that he was who he said he was, no error there.

But lately, something had changed. Nothing visible, nothing tangible – no evidence to speak of. But it was different. Riley was different. Since his wife had been assaulted at the beginning of the year, in fact. Since Jessica Riley was in a coma at the hospital.

Moreno knew who John Riley was. But she had a feeling the man himself might not know who he was anymore. That, maybe, the detective thought he was someone else, someone who needed to pretend they were John Riley.

The problem being that whoever Riley thought he was, that person was very, very good at being John Riley. The only proof Moreno had of the shift in personality wasn't a proof. It was only instinct. It was only her having known John Riley for years, and knowing when something was off – not what was off, but that it was off.

These last months, Riley had been off all the time.

 

Detective Lionel Fusco sat at his desk, ready to do the damn paperwork for their previous case, but he couldn't help glancing at John, his partner, who was also looming over paperwork, with a face that screamed imminent murder. Just like always. Whenever someone wanted to make a suspect they had brought to the precinct speak, they just left the person to sit next to John's desk while they took all their time getting coffee. It usually sufficed to get the suspect very, very anxious.

These days, though, since the assault to be exact, John looked even more murderous than usual. That is, the cold, calm kind of murderous. Not angry or aggressive... Just passively threatening.

Like, I-can-kill-you-nineteen-different-ways-but-I-won't-unless-you-give-me-a-reason-to menacing.

John had been like that for a time after Carter's – another detective, a friend with whom they used to work whenever the other wasn't available – death, last year, but it hadn't lasted more than a week. Now, it was a constant.

Then again, Jessica's assailant had never been identified, so Lionel could kind of understand why John felt off.

What he didn't understand, was where his partner kept disappearing to, like, at any hour of the day – or the night, for the matter. What was John doing, that he came back with more bruises, cuts, and occasionally bullet wounds, every two days or so? How did the guy know where to show up to twarth so many on-going criminal activities?

John refused to tell him about his intel, Lionel knew, even if his guy was very good at redirecting, so good that the other detective never noticed it before the guy was gone, even though they had known each other for a few years already.

What was really weird, though, was the way John seemed to expect him to just accept it – and, alright, Lionel had always let the taller man get away with a lot of things, mostly because he didn't know how to say no to Tall, Dark and Stormy, but this? This was a whole new level of secrecy.

John was hiding something actively – the man always kept things quiet, but that was him being passive, not revealing unnecessary things and all that.

Lionel was worried, to say the truth. Since the aggression, John... John was just more John than ever, in a way. Every suspicious part of the man had reached a new extreme. And that, Lionel knew only because he had spent a lot of time working with the man.

 

Doctor Iris Campbell had been tasked with making sure that Detective John Riley was okay, even after what had happened to his wife, and for the first time in her career, she was utterly failing.

Well, not quite. In all sincerity, she did know there was something wrong with the detective, it was just that she couldn't manage to get him to open up and talk about it. More than that, Riley was very good at compartmentalizing, and at keeping control of what he did say and what he didn't; as a consequence, the man had told her about some personal things, about his father, about his past... but nothing relating to Jessica Riley's assault, nothing about what she really needed to hear to help him.

What Riley had told Iris was important, of course, but what he hadn't told her was even more important to understand him and what he was going through. She guessed it was better than nothing that, at least, he had started talking, but it certainly wasn't enough.

Like many former soldiers who had undergone some unpleasant times with their enemies, John Riley knew how to keep his mouth shut. More than that, he knew how to keep silent, and make it impossible to deduce what exactly he was hiding, even if he wasn't bothering that much with making it discreet... Which might be even more effective a method, because if he had gone on pretending he was fine, like he had first attempted, Iris would know where to start, using the fake bridges he'd have been constructing between them to make him realize she could see through it.

The trick being never to let the patient know how much exactly you could see through, so that they'd talk about even the things the therapist had no idea about, because they thought the therapist already knew.

A trick she couldn't use on Riley anymore, because the man was simply not talking, and thus she couldn't tell him she knew he was lying...

Iris had, of course, read his file. There was a period of two years, after he left the army, during which the man had apparently drifted around without a real purpose, as some veterans sometimes did, but looking at John Riley, Iris thought it sounded fake. Official, but fake. And she couldn't start to tell what was hidden behind these fake years.

The problem, with Detective Riley, was that he had too many secrets, important or not, and that he was treating them all on the same level. That is, complete confidentiality. Meaning, Iris had no idea where to start, and Riley could always give up on a personal detail and it still felt like he had revealed something terribly important.

Of course, John Riley also had a problem, that much the therapist was certain of. But she wouldn't be able to help him unless she could first unravel the tangled mysteries he lived with.

 

Sameen Gray passed by the precinct to check on John around midday, bringing him something to eat – if she didn't, she was almost certain he'd forget; it had happened too many times since Jessica's aggression already.

He barely acknowledged her, again – that is, he said Hi, he smiled thinly, he did everything normal for a homicide detective working hard on a case, but Sameen wasn't fooled.

He'd probably call her in the middle of the night, needing backup to take on NYC's finest of organized crime or something like that, and evidently, Sameen would go and help him even if she had no idea how he got all his intel – part of it, sure, considering she was dating the psycho who lurked in the depths of the dark web in search of illegal conversations about who was going to gun who down this fine evening, but not all of it. She'd go, partly because she was worried about John, partly because she liked the action.

John and her had known each other during their two years off the grid, after the Delta Force for him and the Corps for her. They had worked together, and done some interesting jobs, and when a mission had gone sour and their employer had offered them to walk out and go on living normally, they hadn't hesitated. Mostly because their employer's boss hadn't appreciated the latest events – freaking bureaucrats, no idea what field work was like – and would have probably sent them on a suicide mission at one point or another as revenge, and they both knew it.

Then, surprisingly, John had gone and joined the force, while Sameen did odd jobs while searching for something more interesting and not completely illegal. Right now, she was a cosmetic saleswoman, and she hated it.

Perhaps she'd have to take Root on her offer, and become the Machine Coffee's bouncer. God knew the place attracted all kinds of unsavory characters, and Root had too fun a time using her taser.

Not that Sameen minded.

Had Sameen been someone else, and had she not known John as she did, she might have refused to help him with his mysterious crusade if he didn't spill what was wrong.

Except Sameen liked the action, was worried about John getting himself shot being the daredevil he was if he always went alone, and knew perfectly that if she tried to coax an answer out of him, he'd simply push her back and start doubting her too. Sometimes, not asking questions was the better way to find out what was wrong, even if it took longer.

And if Sameen was right, and John really was having a psychotic break – the day he had called her to get rid of Peter Arndt, Jessica's attacker, in a mexican jail under a false name, and Sameen had come to find the guy inconscious, bleeding, and with two broken legs, and the fact that John continued acting as if it had never happened, was enough of a hint – then she could tell the man was certain that whatever secret he was keeping, Sameen was on it too. If she didn't act as if she already knew the secret, he'd assume she had been turned against him.

And that, that would cause things to get ugly.

So for now, Sameen was simply watching her partner's back, observing, and hoping.

 

Root – also know as Samantha Groves – didn't particularly like the big lug – alright, she did, a little, but she wouldn't admit to anything – but John Riley was Sameen's best friend, and the only reason Root's girlfriend wasn't out there searching for an illegal job where she could beat people senseless – since, you know, John and Sameen did that together already.

Also, John Riley was proving to be useful as an enforcer whenever Root sent him a social security number, for someone she had heard about on the dark web, who might or might not get in trouble or commit a crime in the next days. Not that Root cared much about what happened to these people, you know, but since she had the knowledge she might as well have John act upon it.

And there was the fact that whatever delusion the big guy was living in these last months, he was being terribly efficient about it. Interesting on a mental health point of view, and on a more practical plane too, because Root just didn't know where he got all his intel, and she didn't like not knowing – John Riley was getting part of his intel from her, obviously, but there were a number of cases she had nothing to do with, and his job had nothing to do with either, so what?

No, Root wasn't worried about John. Why would she be?

She'd just hate it if the guy got himself killed, and Sameen had to deal with the fallout. And she wouldn't be happy if he died before she could figure out from where he got the rest of his intel. And she'd have to find someone else to partner up with Sameen whenever Root's girlfriend got a bit too trigger-happy, and that would prove to be an ordeal, because Sameen simply didn't like most people – not efficient enough, not professional enough, boring, annoying, useless, spineless, your pick.

No, Root didn't care about John Riley. Certainly not.

But she wanted to know, and so far, the only real clue she had was a name, “Harold”, which John had spoken about when off working a number, as if Sameen was supposed to know who this “Harold” was.

So far, Root hadn't been able to gather anything about a “Harold” connected to John Riley, except a janitor in the building next to John's, but she doubted that was it. So either Harold was a complete construct of the big guy's imagination, or it was code standing for something else.

Root would discover what answer was the right one. And no, she wasn't doing it for John's sake.

 


End file.
